KUWAIT CITY (AP) - Kuwait will donate US$10 million to rebuild the Iraqi Shiite shrine destroyed in an attack last week and the Sunni mosques later damaged in retaliation, officials said Monday.

Foreign minister Sheik Mohammed Al Sabah told reporters that "Kuwait decided to offer US$10 million for (repairing) the religious places that were destroyed in Iraq."

He did not offer further details, but the state-owned Kuwait News Agency quoted Minister of State Mohammed Sharar as saying that it had been ordered by the emir, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah.

Half the amount, he said, would be used for repairing the dome of the Askariya shrine in the city of Samarra. The other half would be used to rebuild the Sunni mosques sabotaged in retaliation for the bombing.

The bombing of the dome of the 1,200-year-old shrine has sent angry Shiites into the streets, damaging Sunni mosques and attacking Sunni Imams.

Last week the Iraqi Association of Muslim Scholars, a prominent Sunni group said 168 Sunni mosques had been attacked nationwide, 10 imams had been killed and 15 abducted since the shrine attack.

The Iraqi interior ministry said it could only confirm figures for Baghdad, where it had reports of 19 mosques attacked, one cleric killed and one abducted.

Shiites in Kuwait, who make up about 30 percent of the population, have demonstrated against the attacks and some have warned that any sectarian strife could spill into the country.

This small oil-rich state has been a strong ally of Washington since the 1991 U.S.-led Gulf War that liberated it from a seven-month Iraqi occupation under Saddam Hussein. It was the launch pad of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam in 2003.